Keurig Green Mountain Inc. Coffee ranked second only to petroleum in world trade in 2013, with the United States being the largest importer, and Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia being the largest producers (Treadway, 2015). Despite a complicated global commodity chain, coffee remains a lucrative and competitive business with many players. Exemplifying this fact, Keurig Green Mountain Inc., manufacturers of the Keurig coffee brewer and single-serve coffee pods known as K-cups, was recently bought by German investment company JAB Holding Company (Gasparro, 2015). Keurig History The Keurig coffee brewer, whose name means excellence in Danish, was originally designed by two engineers in the earlier 1990s to produce a premium single-serve cup …show more content…
The new owners will review the segregated functions along the value-chain of the manufacturing company with a fresh perspective. According to Blocher et al. (2016), identifying opportunities to add value as well as reduce costs are additional steps included in the value analysis. Since 2012, JAB Holdings acquired other U.S. coffee companies including Caribou Coffee Co, Peet’s Coffee and Intelligentsia, to name a few (Gasparro, 2015). In light of these acquisitions, incorporating economies of scale within the coffee supply chain could reduce costs for the German holding company. Furthermore, Fearne et al. (2012) elaborate on the shift in thinking from a “minimum dependency on suppliers…to maximize the scope for leverage over price, to mutual leveraging of skills and resources across supply lines to deliver both efficiency and effectiveness” (p. …show more content…
(p. 124). Along these lines, the original Green Mountain Keurig ownership incorporated a sustainability commitment within their company. As a key competency of the former company that attracted consumers and suppliers, the new ownership, JAB Holdings, should maintain or increase this strategic focus within their value chain. According to Russell and Varon (2015), Green Mountain was the largest purchaser in the world of fair trade-certified coffee, benefiting the small coffee grower stakeholders in the tropics, as well as satisfying consumers increased awareness of their